Lambda Literary Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature facts for kids

The Lambda Literary Awards, often called the "Lammys," are special prizes given out every year in the United States. They celebrate books that feature or explore themes about LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people. This organization is known for helping new and exciting LGBT writers share their stories.

One of these awards is the Lambda Literary Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature. It's one of 25 different Lammys! This award first appeared at the 2nd Lambda Literary Awards in 1990, and back then it was called the "Young Adult/Children’s Book Award." After a short break in 1991, it came back for the 4th awards as "Children's/Young Adult Literature." Then, starting in 2007, it became known as the "LGBTQ Children's/Young Adult" award.

At the 25th Lambda Literary Awards in 2013, a record number of books were submitted! Because so many great books were entered, the judges were encouraged to pick more finalists. Since then, if a lot of books are submitted, the Children's/Young Adult category can be split into two smaller groups: "Children's/Middle Grade" and "Young Adult." This happened in 2020 and 2021, for example.

Award-Winning Authors

Some authors have won this award multiple times. David Levithan has won three times (in 2004, 2007, and 2014) and was nominated three other times. Jacqueline Woodson won twice, in 1996 and 1998. In 2018, Kacen Callender was the only author to have two books nominated in the same year: This is Kind of an Epic Love Story and Hurricane Child. Hurricane Child actually won that year!

Winners of the Lambda Literary Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature

This table shows the books that have won the Lambda Literary Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature.